William Preston Johnston - Julius Cæsar lyrics

THE foremost man of all the world! Is't true? His was a mind that grasped the whole of life, That gazed with equal brow on calm and strife, Gleaned what the past bequeathed, yet seized the new, And saw the ages march in grand review. The stern republic of an earlier day, Rent into fragments, mouldering to decay, Still felt the thirst to combat and subdue, The instinct fierce the old paths to pursue Which led to conquest and imperial sway. This Cæsar saw; and though his pathway lay Across the muniments of time, he drew Into his sovereign hand all that was old And bade a new world from the germs unfold.